"Is anyone among you suffering? Let him pray. Is anyone cheerful? Let him sing praises."
Whatever you do, don't shut down.
Is life going well for you? Let your mouth and heart send love notes of thanks and praise to God. Do not have an affair with good times and cheat on the Lover of your soul. Any good going on comes from Him. Allow the gift to champion more love for the Giver, not compete with Him.
Are you in a season of suffering? He can handle your anger, absorb as many tears as you need to cry, and understand your questions about why He didn't fulfill what you believe He promised.
Bring it all to Him.
Your flesh will want to turn your back and give Him the silent treatment. He will be there when you are ready to come back, but you cheat yourself when you pull away. Suffering is hard enough. Why add loneliness to it?
Invite Him to the party and the funeral.
No matter what, don't shut down.
Thursday, August 28, 2014
Thursday, August 21, 2014
Driving Yourself Crazy
"for each one should carry their own load." Galatians 6:5
Can you imagine driving the expressway with one hand on your steering wheel and the other on the wheel of the car in the next lane? I know it's physically impossible unless your neighbor is driving one of those foreign cars with the wheel on the wrong side.
Stay with me, please.
If you were to accomplish this feat, how well would you be driving your own car? Swerving and bumping? Barely arriving at your destination in one piece? Sounds dangerous and exhausting!
Cars were not designed for that, and neither was your life.
In your desire to be caring toward others, you started out lending a helping hand, but now you've become an unpaid workhorse. You're pacing the floor worrying about someone who is not as concerned about their problems as you are. You're driving their car when they should be doing it themselves, and you're driving yourself crazy. It's too much!
God has a wonderful to-do list for your life. Have you cut from the list of another and pasted it to yours?
Only the Holy Spirit can help you discern the fine line between Christian caring and codependency. Ask Him to highlight the line so you know if you've crossed it.
Talk About It:
How have you been able to draw the line? How do you think God helps us handle the guilt that can accompany setting boundaries?
Can you imagine driving the expressway with one hand on your steering wheel and the other on the wheel of the car in the next lane? I know it's physically impossible unless your neighbor is driving one of those foreign cars with the wheel on the wrong side.
Stay with me, please.
If you were to accomplish this feat, how well would you be driving your own car? Swerving and bumping? Barely arriving at your destination in one piece? Sounds dangerous and exhausting!
Cars were not designed for that, and neither was your life.
In your desire to be caring toward others, you started out lending a helping hand, but now you've become an unpaid workhorse. You're pacing the floor worrying about someone who is not as concerned about their problems as you are. You're driving their car when they should be doing it themselves, and you're driving yourself crazy. It's too much!
God has a wonderful to-do list for your life. Have you cut from the list of another and pasted it to yours?
Only the Holy Spirit can help you discern the fine line between Christian caring and codependency. Ask Him to highlight the line so you know if you've crossed it.
Talk About It:
How have you been able to draw the line? How do you think God helps us handle the guilt that can accompany setting boundaries?
Thursday, August 14, 2014
Surrender
"...yet not my will, but yours be done." (Luke 22:42)
In all our excitement and joy about the manifold promises our gracious God makes us in His Word, sometimes we overstep.
We can allow our joy to spill over into places God has issued no invitation.
We may assume our dreams are God's dreams for us when they may not be.
King David dreamed of building a house for The Lord ( 2 Samuel 7). Nothing wrong with that, right? He was a man after God's own heart--what a beautiful gift to dream up! But David's wonderful, God-honoring desire was not God's desire. That dream had someone else's name on it.
Ouch!
What if what you are dreaming of is not the Father's plan? What should your attitude be in the face of this brand of disappointment?
Surrender.
There is freedom in surrender. It rolls the responsibility for outcomes onto Bigger Shoulders.
Surrender remembers there is a bigger program at work than just the part of the map her shadow falls on.
When a dream makes a brilliant and persuasive proposal, Surrender casts a child-like glance toward the Father for His nod of approval or His thumbs-down.
A dream is a beautiful thing, but it's an ugly step-sister when compared to the splendor of surrender to the will of our First Love.
Talk About It: Do you find it frightening to surrender your dreams to God?
Thursday, August 7, 2014
This Just In
Ephesians 5:16 (AMP) - Making the very most of the time [buying up each opportunity], because the days are evil.
Hello Friends,
It is Election Day today (Thursday) and I am unable to do an official blog post. I would like to give you something to meditate on, though.
If you knew you were going to die seven days from now, how would you live differently? Who would come to mind that you'd wish you had done more for, thanked, forgiven, or spent more time with.
Why wait til you get bad news before you begin making your regret-list shorter?
Start today redeeming the time you have left.
Hello Friends,
It is Election Day today (Thursday) and I am unable to do an official blog post. I would like to give you something to meditate on, though.
If you knew you were going to die seven days from now, how would you live differently? Who would come to mind that you'd wish you had done more for, thanked, forgiven, or spent more time with.
Why wait til you get bad news before you begin making your regret-list shorter?
Start today redeeming the time you have left.
Thursday, July 31, 2014
When You're Overwhelmed With Stress
"Take my yoke upon you and learn of me...for my yoke is easy and my burden is light." Matthew 11:29-30
I will never forget the day I heard God use a rather ethnic tone with me. (He made all ethnicities, so why not?)
I was knee-deep in motherhood, neck-deep in academics and up to just below my nose with an activity I saw as essential to my kids' future.
I was crazy with stress.
I cried out to The Lord in the middle of my multi-tasking mania.
"God, how in the world will I get everything done?"
God may have smelled a trace of accusation in my breath-prayer that day because I'll NEVER forget the reply He breathed in my spirit.
I can almost see His holy eyebrows raised as He said something like, " Um...Didn't nobody tell you to take on all that extra stuff. I told you to ______________."
God usually speaks to me in short sentences and then leaves me to draw the logical conclusions to what He has said.
That day I concluded that my brain was pickling in stress because I'd brought it on myself. Jesus never was frantic with stress, yet He said He fulfilled all God assigned Him. Because He lives in me, I can complete all His assignments too.
He said His burden is light. If my knees are buckling, it is because I have overcommitted myself with surplus elective responsibilities.
What about you? Do you have so many irons in the fire you can hardly see the fire?
I encourage you to re-evaluate...declutter... simplify...delegate.
I am LOVING the freedom this brings.
You will too.
Talk About It: What is God calling you to throw overboard to keep you from sinking in stress?
I will never forget the day I heard God use a rather ethnic tone with me. (He made all ethnicities, so why not?)
I was knee-deep in motherhood, neck-deep in academics and up to just below my nose with an activity I saw as essential to my kids' future.
I was crazy with stress.
I cried out to The Lord in the middle of my multi-tasking mania.
"God, how in the world will I get everything done?"
God may have smelled a trace of accusation in my breath-prayer that day because I'll NEVER forget the reply He breathed in my spirit.
I can almost see His holy eyebrows raised as He said something like, " Um...Didn't nobody tell you to take on all that extra stuff. I told you to ______________."
God usually speaks to me in short sentences and then leaves me to draw the logical conclusions to what He has said.
That day I concluded that my brain was pickling in stress because I'd brought it on myself. Jesus never was frantic with stress, yet He said He fulfilled all God assigned Him. Because He lives in me, I can complete all His assignments too.
He said His burden is light. If my knees are buckling, it is because I have overcommitted myself with surplus elective responsibilities.
What about you? Do you have so many irons in the fire you can hardly see the fire?
I encourage you to re-evaluate...declutter... simplify...delegate.
I am LOVING the freedom this brings.
You will too.
Talk About It: What is God calling you to throw overboard to keep you from sinking in stress?
Thursday, July 24, 2014
Join In!
In my quiet time today in 1 Corinthians 16, I couldn't help pausing to chew on the verses below:
You know that the household of Stephanas were the first converts in Achaia, and they have devoted themselves to the service of the Lord’s people. I urge you, brothers and sisters, to submit to such people and to everyone who joins in the work and labors at it (1 Cor. 16:15-16).
Our American culture tends to assign a rank to everything, but here, Paul encourages a sense of partnership. Notice he calls them brothers and sisters? He reminds them they are family. Why would he need to urge them to submit to everyone who joins in the task God has given? Could it be that there was a bucking or competitive spirit among them? Perhaps there was an attitude of wanting to be independent or just plain uninvolved in ministry.
Friends, we are all in this together! Yes, God values us as individuals, but He designed individuals in the Body of Christ to be interlocking pieces of a whole puzzle.
What can you do to be more of a partner than a competitor with those serving The Lord? Is there a need at your church or in your community waiting for you to step up and do your part?
Perhaps you think someone else can do it better. You're right, but they aren't doing it either. Meanwhile, the Lord's work goes undone.
Let's say you are unable to be active in the work directly. Remember that prayer is a price anyone can afford. A word of encouragement is a booster shot everyone can administer.
God gave the charge to reach the whole world to all of us. Your corner of the world is equally as important as the remote village a missionary is assigned to; however, you and the missionary need each other to be successful.
The whole world is an enormous field to mow. There's too much work to be done to have a competitive spirit--too many folks in despair to be idle. Partnership is the only way to get it all done.
Join in!
You know that the household of Stephanas were the first converts in Achaia, and they have devoted themselves to the service of the Lord’s people. I urge you, brothers and sisters, to submit to such people and to everyone who joins in the work and labors at it (1 Cor. 16:15-16).
Our American culture tends to assign a rank to everything, but here, Paul encourages a sense of partnership. Notice he calls them brothers and sisters? He reminds them they are family. Why would he need to urge them to submit to everyone who joins in the task God has given? Could it be that there was a bucking or competitive spirit among them? Perhaps there was an attitude of wanting to be independent or just plain uninvolved in ministry.
Friends, we are all in this together! Yes, God values us as individuals, but He designed individuals in the Body of Christ to be interlocking pieces of a whole puzzle.
What can you do to be more of a partner than a competitor with those serving The Lord? Is there a need at your church or in your community waiting for you to step up and do your part?
Perhaps you think someone else can do it better. You're right, but they aren't doing it either. Meanwhile, the Lord's work goes undone.
Let's say you are unable to be active in the work directly. Remember that prayer is a price anyone can afford. A word of encouragement is a booster shot everyone can administer.
God gave the charge to reach the whole world to all of us. Your corner of the world is equally as important as the remote village a missionary is assigned to; however, you and the missionary need each other to be successful.
The whole world is an enormous field to mow. There's too much work to be done to have a competitive spirit--too many folks in despair to be idle. Partnership is the only way to get it all done.
Join in!
Thursday, July 10, 2014
When You're Struggling To Believe
"Every problem a person has is related to his concept of God. If you have a big God, you have small problems. If you have a small God, you have big problems. It is as simple as that." ~Walter A. Henrichsen
Have you ever revisited a place you saw as a child and realized how small it looks now compared to how big it seemed when you were little? What changed, you or the location? You did, of course.
If you are like me, sometimes you find your "faith arms" are too weak and flabby to lift a "boulder problem" up to God in prayer. The boulder is like a pebble to God, but you approach Him as if He were the pebble!
What to do?
Go to the Scriptures for a perspective adjustment. The Word magnifies God to His true size, shrinks your burden, and lightens your heart.
Here are a few verses to get you started:
"God is not a man, so he does not lie. He is not human, so he does not change his mind. Has he ever spoken and failed to act? Has he ever promised and not carried it through?" (Numbers 23:19, NLT)
Have you ever revisited a place you saw as a child and realized how small it looks now compared to how big it seemed when you were little? What changed, you or the location? You did, of course.
If you are like me, sometimes you find your "faith arms" are too weak and flabby to lift a "boulder problem" up to God in prayer. The boulder is like a pebble to God, but you approach Him as if He were the pebble!
What to do?
Go to the Scriptures for a perspective adjustment. The Word magnifies God to His true size, shrinks your burden, and lightens your heart.
Here are a few verses to get you started:
"God is not a man, so he does not lie. He is not human, so he does not change his mind. Has he ever spoken and failed to act? Has he ever promised and not carried it through?" (Numbers 23:19, NLT)
"Ah, Sovereign LORD, you have made the heavens and the earth by your great power and outstretched arm. Nothing is too hard for you." (Jeremiah 32:17, NIV)
"The one who did not spare his own Son, but offered him as a sacrifice for all of us, surely will give us all things, along with his Son, won't he?" (Romans 8:32, NIV)
"Now therefore, our God, the great, the mighty, and the awesome God, who keeps covenant and lovingkindness...." (Nehemiah 9:32, NASB)
You get the idea. Can you feel your burden shrinking,--your faith growing?
Your Heavenly Father wants you to view today's challenges from the perspective of a mature daughter instead of a frightened little girl. When He puts His listening ear to your praying lips today, may it be tickled with the sweet breath of confidence and faith in Him.
Talk To Me: Do you have another verse or practice that bolsters your faith when it is weak? I'd love to hear it in the comment box for this blog or via email (ordinerrygirl@yahoo.com) .
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